The following five messages are related to "New Boot-up system fromHDD"
originally made by takamiti@mix.  These are

part-1		Introduction of MXboot
part-2		Usage of MXboot's menu and comparison of bootstrap loaders
part-3		English translation of documents
part-4,part-5	source-codes, cdiff's and Japanese-written document

	part-1: "readme.1st" by takamit@mix, orginally in Japanese
		and "intro"  by k.h@mix in English
	part-2: written by k.h@mix in Japanese
	part-3: written by takamiti@mix in Japanes

	    All Japanese-written documents are translated into English
	    by nemossan@mix, nemossan@uitec.ac.jp.



The following is trial English translation of "readme.1st", original document
in Japanese language will be found in the archive in part-4 and part-5.
============================================================================
MXboot  is  a utility for boot-up minix-v1.5  from fixed-disk in IBM-PCs and
its compatibles.   MXboot  was born in the board of minix@mix, and was grown
up  by  the participants  there.  The newest version number  at  the current
date, Jun.29.1991 is version 0.7.   Practical documents  for usage  will  be
found in  "MXboot.doc". (Its English translation will be found in part-3/5.)

This package can be (if necessary) redistributed under the condition
	(1)	all files should be included
	(2)	distributer should NOT require any charge other than
		necessities ONLY for redistribution.
	(3)	Distribution or usage  of  this package  should  NOT
		give any person/organization exclusive rights.  Dis-
		tributer(s) should NOT  limit redistribution of this
		package.

If you find any bugs,  and/or  if you fix  please  write in the document and
feed it back  to  the re-distributer  or minix-board  at  Nikkei-MIX. Redis-
tibuter of this package  should  feedback  to  its original place  where you
obtained this package and .... finaly to Nikkei-Mix minix-board.

Even if ANY trouble might occur  by this package,  the author, the tester of
the package  and  a person/organaization  who (re-)distributed  this package
have NO-WARRANTY for damage, thus TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK!
============================================================================


And the next is "introduction", orginally written by k.h@mix in English.
============================================================================
Introduction of the new MINIX booting system from Japan - "MXboot"

	The "MXboot" is a new MINIX boot strapping method written by
takamiti@MIX in Japan.  This is very small but versatile program written
in compact ASSEMBLER routines featuring

1) MXboot - New MINIX IPL program put into the RESERVED 1024 bytes IPL
   sectors in MINIX file system.

2) assistIPL - New master IPL program to be stored in first sector in first
hard disk drive.

	By this system, We are able to do as follows.

a) Booting MINIX from first hard disk drive in active partition by BOOT
   INDICATOR in partition table which have been set by MS-DOS/MINIX fdisk
   program in or by BOOT-TIME SELECTION in "assistIPL" master IPL program.

b) Booting MINIX from SECOND HARD DISK drive by boot-time selection.

c) Bootting ANY MINIX kernel from MINIX file system by boot-time selection.
   Even the MINIX kernel which does use only external SCSI hard disk can be
   booted by boot-time selection and traditional MINIX boot-menu.

d) Booting NON MINIX system like MS-DOS or many UNIX or UNIX-LIKE system
   from hard disk by BOOT INDICATOR in partition table or boot-time selection.

e) Booting NON MINIX system from a image file in MINIX file system.


	The "MXboot" system is composed of two independent programs.

A) MXboot - This program is stored in RESERVED 1024 bytes BOOT SECTOR in
   MINIX file system and load core image stored in the "/system/minix.sys"
   file or any specified file such as /minix by boot-time selection to memory.
   We can use only this program by BOOT INDICATOR in partition table of the
   first hard disk drive.

B) assistIPL - This program is intended to replace the ORIGINAL MS-DOS master
   IPL program in the first hard disk.  This enables many features not
   supported by original master IPL program such as bootting from non active
   partition or any partition in the second hard disk.  This is used not only
   for MINIX but for any NON MINIX system.


	We hope this new small but versatile and orthodox method will be a
new standard in MINIX OPERATING SYSTEM.

			k.h@MIX
============================================================================

ps	MXboot is originally made on NEC-PC9801, and if someone want to
	have it, I mean NEC-version, we are ready to post it.
